President Barack Obama showed up on Reddit today for an unannounced Ask Me Anything session at around 4PM. The post set a record for Reddit, with more than 200,000 concurrent visitors during the iAMA. That makes today Reddit’s biggest day ever, general manager Erik Martin told The Verge over Gchat. “Chaos here,” he said.
Reddit has its biggest day ever thanks to President Obama’s AMA
President Barack Obama’s Ask Me Anything helps Reddit set a record.
President Barack Obama’s Ask Me Anything helps Reddit set a record.
“Reddit” and “Barack Obama” quickly broke into Twitter’s trending topics, and the story hit the blogosphere within minutes. Mainstream outlets like CBS and The Washington Post were just as surprised as Mashable; it seems the White House thought the stunt would work better if it were a surprise.
"NOT BAD!"
Reddit’s servers struggled to keep up with the load, with some curious readers locked out for the entire session — although the site never fully went down. Two hours later, Reddit is still cleaning things up.
The president’s post got 6,500 comments in the first 34 minutes. Heartbreakingly, he only answered ten questions before declaring the experience, “NOT BAD!” and presumably returning to running the country.
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